


Arcane Pursuits

by Curiawesome



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast is a Mess, Caleb never meets the M9 AU, Confrontation, Drunk Planning, Fleeing to Emon, Gift Giving, Haggling like your life depends on it, Hint: It doesn't get far, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, POV Caleb Widogast, Panic Attacks, Passing mentions of prostitution I guess, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rated mature for Caleb's Backstory and his thoughts mostly, Self-Indulgent, Spellcasting as Craft, Trust Issues, Vague Nightmares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21672946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curiawesome/pseuds/Curiawesome
Summary: That piteous look on the merchant’s face didn’t slip, although he still seemed friendly. Caleb was holding his breath.“You are certainly leaving no leaf unturned, friend,” he said and seemed to think it over. Caleb laughed weakly.“I will not leave without this thread,” Caleb pressed out, “unless you physically remove me from your establishment, I suppose.”“Your single-mindedness is quite charming, but I have to decline your offer.”*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Curi: Okay. What if Caleb never met Nott bc. He decided to skip the continent altogether and went to Emon. And malnourished and in survival mode found Gilmore's shop. And NEEDS a silver thread. And he is ready to do ANYTHING.
Relationships: Past Astrid/Caleb/Eodwulf - Relationship, Shaun Gilmore/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 119
Kudos: 273





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to the amazing [morresend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morresend/pseuds/morresend/works), who put this idea in my head with their incredible [Kinktober Thing for these two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20847197/chapters/50011472). Check it out, and also browse through the other chapters, because BOY HOWDY did they hook me on some RARE fucking ships.
> 
> This didn't go through beta, so as always, WE DIE LIKE THE FINE FOLK WE ARE! UNCHECKED!

He was on the run.

The moment that woman’s hands lifted off of his shoulders, the weight of reality crashed through his mind and swept any thoughts in its wake.

He had one chance.

He decided to kill his guard, steal her pendant and run into the night. The bone deep hatred he’d felt for himself, but worse, for Ikithon, propelled him almost within a day‘s travel to Rexxentrum, almost a week on nothing but adrenaline, before the hunger took over instead.

He reevaluated, exhausted and starving in a ditch in the woods. He dug for edible roots with numb fingers as he prioritized. He couldn‘t stay in the Empire. He should probably leave the continent entirely. No, he should  _ definitely _ ditch the continent, sooner rather than later.

He decided to leave for Tal‘Dorei and circled through names like he used to circle through books. Caleb, Philip, Leonhard, Wolfgang, Peter, Alexander, Caleb again. He had a new name on his lips whenever a stranger asked for his. The thought that someone could hear „Bren“ from his mouth terrified him.

He foraged and stole and begged and  _ survived _ . He warmed strangers‘ beds for food and shelter, he begged in front of temples and shrines and snuck inside to skim from their incense. He was cold and hungry, always. Itching with the need to fix what was wrong, but starving and too weak to even fight off the occasional mugger. Those usually wouldn‘t find anything of value and kick him within an inch of his life out of frustration.

Some days he felt like he deserved it. Those were the same days he remembered his graduation in more vivid detail than he should‘ve technically been able to. He hadn’t remembered his parents’ voices in over a decade.

When he had reached Trostenwald, somehow „Caleb“ had stuck. He liked how it sounded nothing like his name, how it was soft and very much not Zemnian, but just Zemnian enough to not bring attention to his accent. It didn’t use to be as thick. Sometimes he sounded like he barely spoke Common, even to his own ears. It was… a weird observation that made him more aware of the way he sounded. He started putting an effort into suppressing the thick of it.

He had also finally stolen enough incense to bring back his cat. He summoned him with tears in his eyes, held him through the first night and felt a little less alone than before. The desolation and paranoia were still crushing.

Frumpkin was more than a cat, had always been. He was an advantage, a vantage point, an extra set of ears and eyes and a safe means of casing anything. Having Frumpkin back meant that he stole better and a lot more. Sometimes he had enough food now. Sometimes.

Caleb stole a half burnt spell book from a resale store at a crossroad. He spent a freezing cold night in the woods, eyes bright, reading through pages and pages of familiar spells in someone else’s handwriting. Their notes made no sense. But he knew some of these spells like the back of his hand and with almost nothing but muscle memory fixed the former owner’s notes to suit his style of casting.

He had gotten his hands on a spell book, he realized, dizzy with ecstasy, dozens of unmarked pages in the back, a hand full of useful spells in the front. He felt a little safer just tugging it under his coat. Dawn broke and he realized: He had no components. There was nothing he had he could cast a single material spell with. There was an Alarm spell, literally at his fingertips, but he lacked the silver wire to cast it.

So he hid and slept for a couple of hours while Frumpkin kept watch. He went back to tracking southward, away from Rexxentrum and the Zemni fields, towards the passages to the Menagerie Coast. With the book in hand, he had a new list in the back of his mind, too. It said:  _ Silver Wire. Incense. Sulfur. Phosphorus. Fleece. _ In order of priority.

He took stock in Port Damali, but there was only onwards. Through sheer luck and stupidity, he landed himself passage on a trade ship headed to Emon. He signed on as C. Widogast. The real Mr. Widogast had, under quite a strong arcane suggestion, decided to think over his plans to move shop to Tal'Dorei. This he had done luckily after he had paid for the passage.

The night they had left the shores of Wildemount behind, he dreamed of Astrid and Eodwulf for the first time in years.

He dreamed of Astrid’s nails on his scalp as she turned his spine into molten metal and forced his ever racing thoughts into blissfully quiet submission. He dreamed of Eodwulf’s arms around him and his lips at the back of his neck as he put him back together after their wife was done either him. Warm and fuzzy inside and out. He dreamed of falling asleep between them, Wulf’s soft murmurs against his hair, Astrid curled against his chest, her arm reaching over him, fingers entwined with Wulf’s on his hip.

Caleb woke up feeling needy and hollow.

That first day at sea, he confronted the possibility of his husband and wife finding him. They both were, well, all three of them had been, excellent at finding traitors. Keeping them alive through unbearable amounts of pain, too. He came to the conclusion that his best shot at a quick-ish death would be both of them finding him together. If only one of them happened to dig him up, well, they would keep him alive for however long it would take for the other to get there, just so they would get to play, too. He thought up 28 ways of killing himself quickly if he ever had to before the day was out.

The next night, he dreamed of Astrid’s hands around his throat, forcing spells out of him until his mind went blank with nothing but pain, so much worse than the bones she had broken and the flesh she had flayed. Clean, efficient and cold. He dreamed of Eodwulf breaking him like it was personal, strangled whimper after hoarse cry after dry sob, face in the dirt, arms not even bound against somatica. He’d have been too weak to resist him, anyway. 

Caleb woke up feeling panicked and numb.

He couldn’t decide which one of those dreams had been worse. They had both called him  _ Caleb  _ in those dreams, full of adoration the first night, mockingly and cruel the second.

He kept to himself, mostly, and busied himself with anything he could just so he would be too exhausted to dream. He traded arcane and personal favors for coin or favors in turn. It gave him something to do, mostly, but ensured he would not starve right off the bat once he reached Emon. He was still paranoid and clung to his few possessions in his sleep. He had searched high and low for some silver thread in Port Damali, but had run out of time at the same time his luck had run out, too. So Frumpkin watched over him every night, instead. His familiar was not amused, quite the opposite, but couldn’t fight his command.

He left the ship in Emon with its cargo and had no other plan than to acquire the things on his second list so he could be reasonably safe while pursuing the contents of his original one.

_ Revenge. Repair. Rest. _

That last point was very appealing, even now. More than anything, he longed to sleep. In peace. Just once. But he was a fugitive, very aware of his situation, and that meant hypervigilance, every waking moment.

As he wandered the streets of Emon, on the lookout for places to sleep and steal or buy food from, he realized that he would do just about anything for a spool of silver thread. Anything. Anything at all for the peace of mind it would provide, brought together with the single tiny bell he already had, even for one night only. The spell was right there in his stolen spellbook.

Caleb wandered with half a mind making a map in his head and found himself before a storefront that made his neck hairs stand on end. An enchanter’s shop, no doubt, entitled “Gilmore’s Glorious Goods”. He gave the shop a thorough look-over and concluded that this was his best shot at some silver wire of arcane quality.

He spent some hard-earned coin on a warm meal and a bath house, so that the proprietor of the shop would not see a penniless beggar and throw him straight out. Not that he didn’t still look like a penniless beggar, but at least now he didn’t smell like he had been a penniless beggar on a trade ship for 2 months.

He scrubbed his body clean and had the custodian clean his clothes for him. He combed his hair with his fingers, righted himself as much as he could, set his spine straight for the first time in years and strode into the shop with all of 15 coins of copper and a stolen spellbook to his name.

Gilmore’s Glorious Goods was just the right blend of nostalgia and exoticism to be completely disorienting to Caleb. Draped fabrics and beaded curtains for doors, everburning candles safely set in tasteful sconces, interior a blend of a children’s picture book of a Marquesian bazaar and well organized craftsman’s arcanist supplier. Colorfully painted lengths of fabric hung from ceilings and shelves and draped artistically all throughout the shop.

The smell of incense and scented oils only enhanced the lingering odour of magic and the arcane, reminding Caleb of working his assigned time in the diviners’ lab at the Academy. The Professor had enjoyed the scents and had claimed that they aided in her work.

Caleb browsed the shelves for all of 30 seconds before he felt a very  _ loud _ presence approach him. He turned and came face to face with a man about his size, bright eyes in a handsome face, decked out in layers of half sheer violet fabrics and golden trim, rings and chains.

The man still had the faint smell of spellcasting clinging to him.

Caleb took an instinctive step back and his hand went to a component bag that was mostly empty and had nothing he’d have needed to effectively defend himself. He swallowed and tried to seem less jumpy. The man’s wide, friendly smile didn’t falter. Caleb was immediately weary. The man’s voice was deep and booming, his cadence way too friendly, as well.

“Welcome to Gilmore’s Glorious Goods, Emon’s most distinguished source of Arcane Wonders, if I do say so myself. Are you looking for something in particular, friend?”

Caleb swallowed the lump in his throat and stood up straight again. He remembered his list and tried to focus on suppressing the thick of his accent.

“Ah, yes. I am in the market for some silver thread, uhh… arcane quality sulfur and bat guano if you carry anything as unstable, and, uhm… “ He snapped his fingers and had his cat appear around his neck. He felt a little safer immediately. “Whatever you have so I can bring my friend here back should I lose him. Charcoal, incense, herbs. I’ll take any blend.”

What Caleb assumed was the proprietor of the shop sized him up more openly than he thought he would. So Caleb did one of the few things his strategy consisted of: He sent Frumpkin to go make eyes at the man. His cat jumped down from his shoulders and rubbed his body against the enchanter’s legs, who picked him up with practiced ease and held him against his chest. Like a good boy, Frumpkin began to purr. Caleb relaxed a little at the sound, but also at his very flimsy plan going off without a hitch so far.

The other arcanist chuckled.

“Your companion is delightful, very cute. But if you were vying for a discount, I am afraid this won’t cut it. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, aren’t I? Let’s see about those components of yours, yes?”

With Caleb’s familiar in his arms, the merchant led him to a different part of the store, up to an artistically crafted sales counter. The man set down the cat on the counter and stepped behind it. He opened and closed a number of drawers from the back and set two brown, folded up pieces of parchment paper on the dark wood. Then a spool of silver wire. Then a fabric-wrapped block of incense.

Caleb knew their asking prices before the other man said them out loud. 2 silver for the sulfur and the guano. 5 to 8 silver for the silver wire, depending on its length. 5 gold for that brick of processed, fine incense. 6 gold pieces, all in all. He had exactly 2,5 % of that on his person. It wasn’t hard math. He asked anyway.

“Quality wares,” he conceded, anxious, but with a single goal focusing his thoughts. “How much for the total of it?”

Gilmore reached out and scratched Frumpkin behind his ear while he watched Caleb carefully.

“That would be 2 gold for the wire, 2 silver each for the fire starters and the standard 5 gold for the incense.”

Caleb sucked some air into his lungs and breathed out “That doesn’t seem right,” before he could stop himself. The merchant quirked up an eyebrow at that. “Oh?” was all he said.

“I mean, I do not mean to offend, and the wire and incense look very good, I trust your components are of the finest quality, but to be honest, I was expecting prices a little more within my budget.”

The merchant’s smile didn’t falter, still.

“Do tell, friend. What kind of budget are we talking about?”

Caleb squared his shoulders.

“One you would find laughable, I am sure. But your prices do seem a little… inflated. Or maybe that is just this continent, I cannot be sure. 2 silver for both of the packs of powders together seems reasonable, for a start. How much, in weight?”

“10 grams, each. You may weigh them yourself, if you like,” the shop keeper said with a nod to the scales just behind the counter. Caleb lifted one of the packs experimentally. That seemed about right.

“10 grams each,” he repeated, “I trust you with these. I may have nimble fingers, good man, but that will only last me about 20 casts, each. A copper per cast seems a bit much.”

The man stopped petting Caleb’s cat.

“With all due respect, friend, 20 casts from 10 grams seems a bit much. No offense.”

“If you’re wasteful and clumsy, 20 casts seem like a lot, yes,” Caleb said before he could reign himself in. He physically bit his tongue. The Marquesian merchant laughed.

“If you squeeze these smudges to 20 casts of anything, I’ll be mighty impressed, but that won’t change much about their prices. Tell you what, I can do 3 silver total for you. But that’s all you’re getting.”

Caleb swallowed. If that had been all he’d needed, that would have been acceptable. But his priority was something else.

“I will think about it,” he offered and let his eyes wander to the spool, glimmering under the eternal candles. “How long?” he asked with a nod. The merchant’s face went cautious for the blink of an eye, then he was back to being charming and friendly.

“This spool is 20 ft. long. It is fine but durable, spun like thread by one of Ank’harel’s more experienced jewelers. This will not break or be cut easily without jeweler’s tools. If you are looking to use this for what I think you intend it to, this will last you a lifetime.”

Caleb knew the man was right. But 20 feet was not enough and 2 gold was way too much. The plans his mind came up with on the fly didn’t sit well with him. At all.

“How much for 30 feet of it? If you have it on hand, only,” he tried. Frumpkin was still enjoying himself on the enchanter’s table, very little acting required.

“That would run you about 3 gold pieces, friend. But something tells me that you won’t find that any more agreeable than 2 gold pieces for the spool in front of you. Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t. And that was a real problem for the wizard’s paper-thin plan to get his hands on enough silver wire to set his mind at ease for all nights to come. There were exactly three things he could offer, two of them distinctly less pleasant than the third.

“You are not wrong. Is your… do you run this establishment cash only? Or do you accept trade-ins?”

“Depends,” the merchant said cryptically and made a sweeping gesture. Caleb was sure that the very real conflict he felt was mirrored on his face. He gnawed his teeth as he pulled out his spell book from the holster under his coat. He opened one of the empty page spreads from the back onto the counter.

“I would part with about… 26 pages of arcane quality parchment. I will not insult you by pretending the pages are mint condition - but they are unique in format and I’ve never worked with paper that took my absolute shit ink as if it were quality quite like this one. And I have scribed quite a few spells in my time.”

Gilmore took a passing glance at the book and, with an almost apologetic smile, said: “I do not doubt that for a second, friend, but usually, trade-ins need to leave me curious for more, not bored and disappointed. Anything else you want to try your luck with?”

Caleb gingerly closed the book and carefully moved it back into his holster. There was nothing he could give. Well. Nothing he  _ wanted _ to give, but alas. 30 feet of silver thread. If he’d lost the pendant, all silver wire in the world would not protect him. It wasn’t a hard choice to make.  _ Grit your teeth through it once and you’ll finally sleep in peace. _

“Nothing but my skill and time, I am afraid. I am, however, willing to put my back into it,” he said and gave his own best smile before letting his eyes wander south, then back up again. He was quite certain it was subtle enough, but obvious enough, too. “Or my knees, if I have to. I am sure you could always use someone around the shop, yes? Some favor, a service?”

Gilmore laughed a full throated belly-laugh. His voice danced on Caleb’s skin.

“Oh, do I ever? But unskilled workers do more harm than good around a space like this, so I am going to turn you down, friend.”

Caleb hissed in real frustration. He should have led with something more technical than a Find Familiar re-evocation. That would have made him more credible. He did his best to focus and not panic as he recounted the standard curriculum he’d gone through.

“I have five years of lab experience,” he offered, nothing but the truth. “One year for every school of magic but necromancy. I know all standard classifications from Arimol to Kar’an.” Well, from Arimol to Zadyr, but Kar’an had been from Marquett and, to his credit, far more prolific. “All 1945 classic applications of standard modern magic in theory. About two thirds of them in practice if you put anybody’s spell book in front of me. I can be useful if you’ll let me.”

There was a look of real pity on the merchant’s face. Frumpkin stopped purring and lept onto Caleb’s shoulders in an instant.

“It sounds like you are overqualified, then, my wizard friend” the Marquesian said lightly, as if the truth didn’t run beneath. That truth was stranger than fiction, if any of it was true to begin with. He knew. People like him didn’t  _ exist _ . Instead of latching onto it, he focused on the numbers instead.

“3 gold for the thread, 3 silver for the components, yes? So 33 silver total. An unskilled dock worker’s pay runs at around 2 silver a day. Arcane lab technicians make between 5 and 10 gold a day. I would be willing to settle somewhere between the silver and the gold. A week’s work for the thread and the components, if you are amenable?”

That piteous look on the merchant’s face didn’t slip, although he still seemed friendly. Caleb was holding his breath.

“You are certainly leaving no leaf unturned, friend,” he said and seemed to think it over. Caleb laughed weakly.

“I will not leave without this thread,” Caleb pressed out, “unless you physically remove me from your establishment, I suppose.”

“Your single-mindedness is quite charming, but I have to decline your offer.”

Caleb swallowed. One last calculated risk. He dug out his 15 copper and methodically counted them out on the dark, polished wood. He squared his jaw, set his shoulders and took a last, calm breath. He would not leave without the silver wire. He would bend reality to his will, no matter the cost.

“Just the silver thread, then. This is every piece of currency I own. I will pay you all 15 of my copper pieces. I will do whatever work you deem appropriate for a week.” He closed his eyes, ground his teeth and looked the merchant straight in the eye again. “And I will do anything you ask of me. I hereby forfeit my right to deny you any favor or task that will not leave me unable to work the next day. This I will write and sign in my own blood if you require me to, if by the end of it you let me keep a spool like this.”

The merchant’s face froze in its expression of friendly pity. His eyes wandered over the body in front of his component counter, without betraying any thought. Then he cocked his head to the side.

“And if I turn you down again?”

“Then I will offer something else. I will think of something you want. And I will give it.”

The man went quiet again and it was beginning to gnaw at Caleb’s already frayed nerves. But there was nothing else he could do, other than to stand his ground and start thinking of something else to offer. He was running out of options.

“You are serious,” the Marquesian remarked with something like mild astonishment. “What is your name, paranoid friend who would offer me anything for one spool of silver thread?”

Caleb made sure he stood up straight. The name felt true after these last 4 months. It came as smoothly as his old one had. “Caleb. I’m Caleb. Caleb Widogast. At your service.”

The merchant kept looking him over, wordlessly, as if in thought. Caleb didn’t move. If he was thinking, he reasoned, maybe it was about the ways in which someone like him could be put to use. He might still stand a chance.

And true enough, the man behind the counter took out a thicker spool of silver thread and put it down in front of Caleb. His heart started racing with both excitement and dread.  _ Focus on the result _ , he told himself.  _ Nothing else matters. _ He couldn’t read the other man’s face at all. It was unnerving.

“What…” his voice cracked and he tried again. “What do I owe you?”

He waited for an answer while the merchant packed up the components and incense in their respective drawers. When he was done packing up, that too friendly smile was back on the man’s face. “That you take your copper coins and buy some food. That you stay out of trouble out there. That you come back tomorrow to see me. And that you show me you know what to do with your silver thread before you leave today.”

Caleb was sure he must have heard that wrong, but… he wouldn’t argue. “Done,” he whispered and took out his spell book and bell. “Right here?” he asked and picked up the spool. It was light and fine and, true to the man’s word, spun like thin embroidery thread.

The merchant laughed. “If you’re comfortable burning through your focus on my shop floor, sure. Provided you will not cause an explosion, implosion or disruption of the sort, go ahead. Make yourself at home. I will be watching."

Caleb sat down and opened the Alarm page. He had studied it again and again on the ship, repeated the motions, had summed the arcane energy, but without the thread, it just wouldn’t take hold. He forced himself not to focus on the nebulous tomorrow and do his part today.

“I would cast this as a ritual, if you don’t mind waiting. I suggest the following parameters: The alarm shall not be triggered by my friend here nor I. The alarm will be audible so you can test its effects. The alarm will be set around this spell book, one foot in every direction. Once the spell is completed, you can test my work at your leisure. Is that acceptable?”

The silver felt like silk under his fingertips. He was itching to go through the motions and have the spell manifesting. Finally. The arcane was bubbling just under his proverbial skin, roaring to go.

"At least you  _ sound _ like you have done this before. Your parameters are quite acceptable. But if I feel like you don't know what you're doing, I will take back my thread. Understood?"

Caleb was already unwinding the thread with careful twists of his wrist and threaded the bell onto it.

"Oh please, it is just an Alarm spell," Caleb said and started casting. Precise movements of his hands and words in arcane languages so old they had lost meaning. He focused, syllable by syllable, arcane spark by arcane spark that lightly ran up his spine and into his hands, down to his fingertips. It made his eyes sharper, his skin tingle.

After nine minutes of ritual casting, the sheer ecstasy of arcane power was bordering on painful, it had been so long, it felt  _ just right _ . He breathed through it as he recited, more from memory than from the pages before him, eyes shining up at the other man. Looking for any doubt. He knew he wouldn't find any - he'd always been an exceptional caster.

Caleb's lips formed around the last syllable as the merchant spoke.

"Stop."

Unsure what to do, he held the spell, past the point of pleasant as it went on to shake him raw inside. He counted out the seconds in his head, knew he couldn't hold it forever, under a minute as an optimistic estimate. But if this was a test, he would hold this spell as long as he physically could.

The next words sounded more urgent.

"Stop, Caleb, I'm convinced, stop weaving, you're going to…"

Oh thank the Gods. His ears had begun to rush with blood. He channeled the energy back through the silver, safely out of his body, letting it dissipate slowly through the circle around his spell book. He was exhausted but giddy. He would have done it and it would have been perfect.

“You are convinced?” he repeated, hands almost steady as he closed the book. He pulled the bell off of the thread and carefully twisted the silver back around the spool. He put his book into its holster and pulled himself up onto wobbly legs. He kept the spool in his hand, but in the merchant’s sight.

The merchant’s sight was trained on Caleb now, his mild pity morphed into real curiosity. But the wizard didn’t want to get his hopes up. The man’s curiosity could mean one of two things. One favorable and one… not as much. He didn’t dislike the man he presumed was Gilmore, he was cautious and apparently knew his stuff enough to run an establishment big enough to make even Caleb very, very curious, so he hoped it would be the former.

“I am. Consider this bargain struck. Take your thread and come back tomorrow for more.”

“Thank you,” was all Caleb could muster.

“Come back tomorrow,” the man stressed, “I’ve got work to do.”


	2. Execution of Skill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb stays. And he returns. Gilmore's generosity doesn't sit well with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SAID I'D NEED A WEEK AND I'M SORRY, but I wanted to get to this endpoint for this chapter specifically. And it took 15 k words. My bad.
> 
> Shout-out to my rarepair buddies who commented on chapter 1, and [morresend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morresend/pseuds/morresend/works) in particular, you guys are real troopers and made me want to do right by these idiots!

Caleb was lost.

Not physically, he knew exactly where he was in relation to the port he had arrived at. No, he didn’t know what to do about Gilmore. He didn’t know what it would even mean to do something about Gilmore. Or the man he presumed was Gilmore.

He had given him four conditions. Well, three if he boiled them down. He had asked him to ensure his own safety. To demonstrate that he was able to. And to “come back tomorrow”.

_That you come back tomorrow to see me._

That last part stressed him out the most. His mind was running in circles, coming up with all the things “seeing” him could escalate to. He jumped between scenarios his mentor had drilled into him to the point of fluency. And worse, after several months as a constantly starving fugitive, his imagination spun them into bone-shaking, ruthlessly chilling nightmares. So he clung to memories.

He remembered how the wooden counter had felt under his fingers as he had tested the components. He remembered the feeling of magic clawing under his skin with the unfinished spell, the way he was still raw inside. How the residual energy still clung to his bones in the space between marrow and flesh. The way the merchant’s pity had morphed into unguarded curiosity. His stomach dropped in a very unpleasant way.

That was the hope he held onto: that the man’s curiosity was focused on his skill, not his ability to hold spells past the point of pain. Or his willingness to put himself through anything for common components that someone with his skill should be able to pay for. But he had gotten them. Well, the most important one of them. And that was all that counted.

So he clutched the silver thread in his hand as he scoured the streets of Emon for somewhere safe to sleep – neglected stables, abandoned vagabond camps at the edge of town (not the slums, slums were never safe), cracks in walls that led nowhere but somewhere sheltered. He told Frumpkin to look out for a safe place to stay the night, too.

He was circling back towards the port without result, hoping he would score a drunkard’s room in a port inn or a place by the fire of a bar room for a few coins invested in weak alcohol that would do nothing to inebriate a hard drinking Zemnian. Even one with uncharacteristically low constitution like him.

His fey cat and him had signs. Frumpkin knew how to meow and stare for Caleb to get his point. Caleb could order his cat to do just about anything, but his cat couldn’t talk back, couldn’t answer. So they had signs. It was the reasonable thing to have. They had come especially in handy when Caleb had been too anxious, too panicked or too unsafe to slip his senses into Frumpkin’s body and follow along.

There was a sign for “Wait for me here” if Frumpkin was going scouting, a single meow, like a high call. They had a sign for “follow me” in general, for “follow me for food and water”, for “follow me for shelter”, for “dangerous people ahead”. There was a judgmental meow for “are you sure, this is a terrible idea and I don’t approve”, another one for “flee right now, you will be eaten alive, by everything that is holy, flee and hide”.

Frumpkin meowed at him once, high and short. It meant for him to wait for his friend to return, somewhere in sight. Frumpkin meowed and again jumped off his shoulders. He made his way a few steps towards an alley and turned to watch if Caleb was following.

Caleb waited.

Frumpkin disappeared into the narrow alley. If Caleb hadn’t been this malnourished, he would have worried about fitting through it, himself. Destitution had its benefits, he thought bitterly. He let the slowing stream of people guide him along the street, up and down, with one eye on the darkening space between two houses with all the tell-tale signs of slowly leaning into each other more with every passing year.

Frumpkin wasn’t long.

His cat reappeared after all of seven minutes. He looked otherworldly, sitting against the darkening alleyway with his eyes glowing the color of a Zemnian summer day sky. Frumpkin sat and stared, head cocked. He looked up at Caleb and rubbed his paw over his face. “Follow me for shelter”. Caleb followed him without second thought.

His familiar led him through the tight space between weathered stone and plastered rock, up a low garden wall and down the unguarded other side. He ducked through a crack in the wall behind a bush of red currants after his cat. He found himself in a closed off alley, surrounded by houses and walls on every side. There were no doors or windows in either of the surrounding walls. A little too convenient, wasn’t it?

Frumpkin saw him look and meowed at him, stared and repeated the signal. “Follow me for shelter.” Then added a closed-eyed blep. “Hidden.”

There was another way between two of the houses, much like the first one Frumpkin had led him through. One of the buildings, though, seemed abandoned and left to ruin. There was a large hole in its wall, just big enough for him to crawl through.

He found himself inside the abandoned house. There was no furniture, the place had been cleaned out completely. It measured one floor and a half, up a precariously rotting wooden staircase. The house was tiny, 15 by 10 feet at the most. The only door was barred with brick and mortar from the inside, the fireplace cold and sooty, the chimney closed off with overlapping metal sheets, braced against the rough stone.

Caleb did several passes through the space, once, twice, three and four times, looking for signs of recent use. He carefully climbed the stairs, did the same up top. The house had been left behind and unnoticed, and probably had been for quite a while. There were few disturbances in the dust and debris that had come in through the hole in the wall, a few prints from smaller critters, one mummified bat lay in a corner upstairs, but that was everything there was. He checked for remaining bat droppings, but that had been his luck for the day. There were none.

But today had gone well. He had been lucky beyond his wildest dreams. He could be safe now, sleep without abusing his familiar for nightly watches and without Frumpkin waking him after four hours for second or third watch. He made a little camp in the quickly dwindling light, spread his coat on the floor, paced the room with his silver thread and bell in hand. Shelter, food, magic. Not too shabby for the first day half way around the world from where he had started just months ago.

He opened his spell book and, with undue excitement, decided to burn through the spell without ritual. The effects that holding the same spell earlier had left him with weren’t quite gone, yet. He was still somewhat unsettled in the eerie place where his physical self knit onto Weave of the arcane. He prepared the thread with careful fingers. The Alarm spell was a very structuring one – he would be able to right his condition within the first syllables of his spell casting.

Caleb took the first breath as part of the spell and his spine was alight with energy. He repeated his casting, skipped through the ritual safeguards and felt his skin burn and his focus fortify in return. His hands flew through the motions, just slow enough to still be precise and correct. His skull was vibrating in his head as the spell took hold around his mind, around the entire small room, setting a ward against intruders, anyone but Frumpkin and himself.

The spell settled and cemented itself through the wire and the relief and feeling of completion he felt were almost unbalancing. It masked the sudden famished feeling near completely. He grabbed for his cat, cuddled him against his chest as he shook through the last waves of Caster’s Euphoria, his first in so many years. Not without pride, he announced:

“We will both sleep safely tonight.”

They did. Caleb chewed on a piece of unprocessed hard tack until the worst of the hunger subsided and they slept. Until the alarm went off in the early hours of the morning as a rat scavenged for food. Frumpkin didn’t even bother hunting it, he went right back to sleep on Caleb’s chest.

But Caleb was awake already and decided to keep the second part of Gilmore’s bargain. He sneaked back to the main street and made for the port. The atmosphere was only marginally different than at any of the port cities along the Menagerie Coast. It was easy enough to find a still, or once again, open port inn with drunkards sleeping in the tavern room, or just outside.

He had played the same con on drunks in Port Damali, with enough success to get him through the few weeks before he had left Wildemount. It was simple enough. He posed as a scribe down on his luck, tried to buy some rations from his marks, saying they were for the coming journey inland on his quest to find work. He bargained them down to a good price, bought the biscuits for some copper or a small favor and dipped his fingers into their coin purses after his victim believed them stowed away safely again.

He had never quite gotten the hang of soft-touching for valuables, so this was the safest he could do without an accomplice. Emon was a busy harbor, so he picked off three near-perfect marks before the sun rose completely. He had a slightly different cover story each time.

Caleb returned to his cat with twice the ship’s biscuit he’d had before, a whole silver more than he had started with, cured meat scraps he’d bought off of a butcher on the way and a flask full of burning sharp liquor. He offered Frumpkin the lion’s share of his meats, crushed and soaked some hard tack for himself and sacrificed some of his casting molasses to make the soggy, baked off flour a real meal. After his short time at sea, the sailor’s ration tasted like a job well done. And very stale.

He packed up, poofed out his cat for his own safety and left to fulfill his end of the bargain, silver thread safely tucked into an inner pocket of his coat. Whatever the man he thought was Gilmore would ask of him, it would be worth the dreamless, continuous sleep it bought him for countless nights to come.

He found the shop along the same promenade, open and enticing. He patted down his coat again, working out the more stubborn dust from that night’s stone floor and walked in with more confidence than he really felt.

Frankly, he was terrified and just now considering that if he didn’t keep his end of the deal, his pendant would protect him from scrying eyes, be they Dwendalian or Marquesian. Frumpkin wasn’t there, his lack of purring around his shoulders didn’t do anything to alleviate his anxieties.

He wandered the decorated shelves, keeping an eye out for the man himself, but found a half-elf in thick glasses at the component counter, instead. She looked him over, head to toe, before she asked: “Welcome to Gilmore’s Glorious Goods. Can I help you with something?”

He mustered the most polite smile he could manage and said the only thing he could think of: “I was asked to come in again, today. My name is Caleb. Caleb Widogast.”

The half-elf leafed through a large tome, turned for a beaded curtain and called, with a slightly passive-aggressive tone: “Mr. Gilmore? Mr. Widogast is here, but he isn’t on the pick-up list. What am I packing for him?”

Caleb’s immediate impulse was to leave, to turn on his heels and walk straight out again, but a familiar voice called back from behind the curtain. “That’s quite alright, Sherri, he can have another look around, I will take care of him in two minutes. Three minutes, at most.”

‘Sherri’ turned back around to him and said: “Mr. Gilmore will be right with you. If there is anything I can do for you in the meantime, I’ll be right here.”

“I can come back later, if you are occupied,” he said, loud enough that he was certain Gilmore would hear him. “I don’t have any… other commitments today.” The response was almost immediate. “Two minutes, if you don’t mind.”

So Caleb waited.

He browsed shelves with adventurer’s gear, armor pieces mounted to the walls, workshop and organizational supplies. There were alchemist’s basics and anything he would ever need for any spell he had ever known. If pressed, he would have guessed that he could have ordered any spell casting focus he could think of, too. The floor downstairs was already bigger than the building looked from the outside, so the potential for an extensive workshop and backroom was definitely there.

True to his word, Gilmore found him after two minutes while he was rifling through a card catalog of books for sale. The titles and synopsis’s were heavily encoded to keep the uninitiated at bay, but Caleb remembered enough code to cut right through the fog. He wanted every single one of them more than he had ever wanted food. Gilmore cleared his throat as he approached. Caleb was thankful for it, his anxious jump was much less profound than it had been the day before, too.

“Caleb, was it? Good to see you again, friend. How did the silver wire treat you?” the man asked with the same broad, friendly smile. He was clad in new robes, still violet and gold, flowing and exotic. They looked ostentatiously comfortable. Caleb put an effort into relaxing his shoulders as he thought up an appropriate answer.

“You didn’t promise too much. I cast without ritual last night and it took just perfectly. Like sending a Message through a brand new copper wire. I have not slept this well in months and I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Gilmore.”

 _Be thankful and polite,_ he told himself, _it might just soften the inevitable blow._ He bowed his head and repeated. “Really. Thank you. Whatever you need of me, I will do my best to repay you. Truthfully. Whatever you need.”

Gilmore gave him a warm, too loud laugh. “Oh, it’s always wonderful to hear my stock has _thoroughly satisfied_ my customers,” he said with a wink. “I’ll be honest, I was curious what you were looking to secure with that much wire, but I wasn’t expecting that you would be securing yourself.” He stopped and raised an eyebrow. “I guess port inns aren’t as safe as they used to be.”

Caleb barely resisted the urge to sniff himself for the tell-tale smell of brine and alcohol. He did tend to get very personal with some of his marks, it made sense. He had been careful before, but now he knew to expect someone thinking quickly on their feet.

“Everywhere is unsafe when you look poor, squishy and in possession of, uuuh… maybe one or two things one could pawn for a handful of copper. It’s… mostly for the spell book and my own peace of mind. I did not enjoy getting mugged, before, and an Alarm spell is the obvious solution,” he closed and patted his coat over the book.

Gilmore righted the card catalog back perfectly onto its shelf, little boxes with alphabetical letters on the front, and led Caleb back to the component counter, where the half-elf was packing little packages.

“So it would seem. Or, if one were less inclined to offer a complete stranger to do _anything_ for a length of silver wire, you could argue there might be safety in numbers. Many folks come through here looking for someone who’d be handy with a few utility spells on the road. You seem like the traveling kind, Caleb. May I call you Caleb, by the way?”

“Yes, Caleb, I insist, Mr. Gilmore” he mumbled, then decided that a little honesty wouldn’t hurt him: “I, uh… don’t… do well with crowds, so I do prefer the spell.”

The assistant was referring back to the ledger, labeling each order and organizing them on a shelf behind the counter. She worked fast, seemed routinized and when Gilmore stepped behind the counter, she just worked around him as if she did every day. She gave Caleb a court nod as Gilmore’s eyes swept over the drawers.

“Sulfur and bat shit, wasn’t that right? Though frankly, I think that something more utilitarian will serve you better. What other material spells are you looking to top off? Or, if I may be candid, what are your alternatives to a big, mean, fuck-off ball of flame?”

Caleb wanted to think his answer over, but was scared that if he hesitated for too long, he might seem fickle or dishonest or worse, inexperienced. So he did the next best thing: he bought time, flailing around with half-truths that would maybe explain his request for some of the more… fickle components.

“I used to, uh… focus on Evocation spells when I was… it was a long time ago. I was very handy with everything that _burned_ , Fireballs, Scorching Rays, Burning Hands, that’s also why, uh… why I am very practiced with sulfur and guano and usually, they’d be my first pick. But I… my book and my notes were taken. Uhhhh…” He trailed off and took out his book again. “Now I have… this hand-me-down book with a few hedge witch spells that are very useful, actually, and most of them I have worked before, but, uuuhhhh…”

He struggled to put his thoughts in a way that wouldn’t give too much away, while satisfying the man enough not to press. His unreadable, friendly face also didn’t help. “That… that wasn’t the question,” he said, as if he only now realized. ~~_Silver Wire._~~ _Incense. Sulfur._ ~~ _Bat Guano._~~ _Phosphorus._ ~~ _Fleece._~~ _(The fleece he had cut out of a sailor’s coat.)_ The words were as present in his mind as if he had just written them down.

“I am always looking for, well. Incense. For my friend. He keeps me safest. But I cannot afford it right now.” He would blend it himself with sub-par herbs and crumbled, dusty incense pieces swept together from under some deities’ altars if he had to, but he didn’t think this admission would earn him any favors.

He wanted to play it straight with this one, he had the kind of lick of magic around him that made Caleb wonder if he was a studied wizard or a natural caster. For once, he decided to be truthful and honest and try to keep his story as straight and minimal as possible. He wanted those books. It was a long shot, but maybe he could somehow work his way towards them. The addition to his second list was almost enough to offset his discernible dread at the lasting uncertainty of what would be asked of him in return for the favor already given.

“There is… I have a Dancing Lights spell, and I am used to red, white or violet phosphorus for it, but if you have a piece of wychwood, maybe a glowworm or some black phosphorus you would part with, I will make it work. Again, I will work if you’ll let me. Or I can pay some of what I owe, today.”

Gilmore hummed at that, said nothing for a moment, stepped out of Sherri’s way, looked over his drawers and asked: “Where is your friend today? Is he gone or _gone_?”

Instead of answering, Caleb snapped him back into existence on his shoulders. The solid, warm weight was an instant relief. Frumpkin recognized the man across the counter and gave him a noncommittal meow.

“He looks a lot more content today,” the merchant remarked and reached out to scritch Frumpkin behind his ears. The cat magnanimously let him.

Caleb pet his living scarf and couldn’t help explaining. “We both got a whole night’s rest, thanks to you, and he had a nice little meal this morning. I have taken quite a lot out of him these past… I want to say weeks, but probably, he’s taken care of me for a few months now. He deserves spoiling, he is a good cat.”

“A lot of wizards seem to say that about their familiars, Caleb,” Gilmore said with a laugh. “How long have you had him?” Caleb’s heart was beating in his throat as the man began opening and closing drawers without pulling anything out. He clung to his cat.

“It’s been about four months since I got him back, before that… I’ve first summoned him… uhm. I was very young. This was when I first started learning magic. Many years ago. I’ve had him for most of my life. And he has done very well by me.”

Talking to Gilmore seemed easy, even as Sherri was whirring about around him. The man himself pulled out a little bundle of wax paper from one of the drawers, neatly folded around something that might have been a cube of sugar. Or a half-inch piece of securely stored, probably inertly damp phosphorus. Gilmore kept with the conversation.

“Have you considered slipping into his senses for, say, watches? I hear some other Familières swear by it.” Caleb watched anxiously as the merchant went back to digging through his counter. He was almost positive Gilmore was doing it for show.

A man like him didn’t seem like he wouldn’t know exactly where any of his wares were at any given moment, if his impeccable card catalog was any indication. He separated his codes for directly divine and naturally divine magic. In Caleb’s opinion, that was some dead give-away for the merchant’s attention to detail.

“I sometimes do, but it is… hard to stay safe while deaf and blind without additional protection. He is more efficient on his own, anyway. Also I wouldn’t be able to see this,” He added and rubbed his head against his cat’s. “Can you do a blep for our friend, buddy?”

And Frumpkin did, he blep-ed adorably, purred at Gilmore and rubbed his head back against the wizard’s. Talking about Frumpkin was safe and easy, so long as he didn’t mention secret signs and casing shops or stealing with his familiar’s aid.

Gilmore pulled out a shiny, four-and-a-half-inch piece of copper wire, sturdy and unspectacular. Caleb moved his cat from around his shoulders and into his arms. Frumpkin dutifully kept on purring against his chest, doing his best to alleviate Caleb’s anxieties as he ran numbers and prices and hours and outcomes.

“Do you know what to do with this?” Gilmore asked.

Caleb nodded slowly. “Yes.” _Like sending a Message through a brand new copper wire._

“Sherri,” the merchant began, as if he had just remembered something important, “could you check the council tender for me again? The hours don’t add up, maybe you can make it work.” She labeled her parchment-wrapped package and eyed him suspiciously. “Sure, Mr. Gilmore,” she said, “I can certainly try, but I don’t think I can fix the obvious problem.” With a last glance at Caleb, she vanished behind the beaded curtain and Caleb heard her walk up some stairs.

Every one of his hairs stood on end. If Gilmore sent his assistant out of earshot… His thoughts were racing. Frumpkin rubbed himself all over his chest. Gilmore looked at him, cutting and direct and way too closely.

“Caleb, I am going to ask the same of you as I did yesterday. And nothing more,” Gilmore said, slowly. “Do you understand?”

Frumpkin was giving him away, he realized, but now it was too late and poofing him would do nothing but show how much he was trying to mask his unease.

“I do not, but I will not argue with you, Mr. Gilmore. If this is what you require of me, I will send you a Message and light some arcane globules for you. I will stay out of trouble out there and take my coins to buy food if you insist. And I will come back tomorrow to see you again, if you so desire.”

Gilmore became very hard to read in the blink of an eye. “You could recite my exact words back at me, couldn’t you?”

Caleb barked out a laugh, helplessly. “I have a pretty good memory. Most of it is training, some of it by nature, it comes in handy when you, uh… when you try to cast spells you haven’t seen in a spell book in over five years.”

Gilmore opened the wax paper on the counter, revealing the dark-red powder inside. “Put it to use on those lights, then,” he said and stepped back from the counter.

Dancing Lights wasn’t a hard spell, it didn’t take as much as an Alarm, for example, it just took focus. Caleb dipped the tip of his pinkie finger into the phosphorus, spread it across his fingertips with a quick brush of his thumb, called for _light in a dark place_ in what he knew was ancient Draconic, popped his spine, shifted his stance and produced four glowing globules of arcane light from the tips of four of his fingers.

The rush was smaller, but still there, the voice in his head repeating the arcane words over and over to keep the lights lit. Gilmore was watching him wordlessly. Caleb rushed to fill the silence.

“I can do the globules, the torches, the lanterns,” he commented, keeping his focus on the spell, “but the way I cast them prevents me from working any other magic while they are lit. I didn’t use to need to keep up my lights. When you’re… a bit of a firebug like I was, that usually takes care of all your light needs. You don’t need a torch when your hands are on fire,” he added as his weak attempt at humor. A memory gnawed at him and his lights flickered minutely, but stayed up.

The minute had run its course, he recast the spell and kept the lights up seamlessly with the residual smudges of phosphorus on his fingertips.

“How long do you want me to keep them up?” he asked and had them float in a slow circle around himself, repeating the Draconic words in his mind, over and over and over and over.

Gilmore waved his hand at him. “This was all I needed to see,” he said and, with careful fingers, re-wrapped the tiny package. He slid it over the counter and nodded towards the wire. “For the wire, there is a condition to your demonstration.” Caleb could feel himself blanch. Of course there would have been. “I will need to hear it twice. Once now, once when you found somewhere safe to sleep. Can you do that for me?”

Caleb frowned. “Is that all?”

Gilmore’s expression morphed into that showy grin again. “I can _try_ and make it more difficult for you, can’t deny that I like a handsome fellow working for my approval on occasion, but this needn’t be _hard_. Two message spells, Caleb. That is all.”

Caleb thought. The cycle would repeat. He would demonstrate, he would sleep, he would return. Some routine would serve him well, this he knew for a fact, but there was so much to do, so little time… and fewer chances. This might be his one chance at a head-start towards the impossible. So he thought more pragmatically.

“I can do two message spells,” he conceded, “Can I… may I wash my hands first? I was never taught how to cast Prestidigitation and to my discredit, I never thought to learn. The idea of fresh phosphorus on polished copper on my fingertips, even under something as harmless as a Message… is very unpleasant.”

Gilmore laughed and with a some vaguely elvish-sounding spell and a few wiping gestures of his hands, Caleb was profoundly prestidigitized, as if freshly emerged from the resident bath house. This was a little different than he remembered, but seeing the man cast confirmed his suspicion: he was no wizard, his talent might have been hereditary, after all.

“Thank you. I can… do you want me to cast the Message now? And, I am just spit-balling here, maybe we should settle on a time for the second one, when your shop isn’t closed up completely. I have the standard limitations on my messages, the range of 120 feet, the way it travels through other spells and materials, it is just… standard. And I don’t want to mess this up because the spell can’t go through the iron enforced door.”

Gilmore let him say his piece and shrugged. “If you want to, of course. But there is a Message Crenel above the back door where the spell should go through at all times. I might be giving away some trade secrets, but some customers do leave orders by Sending or Message spell, especially the good folks at the Erudite Quarters. Whenever you’re ready, just let me know you’re safe for the night.”

Frumpkin shook himself loose and jumped onto the counter. He looked at Gilmore, then at Caleb and meowed with a cocked head. “ _Do, no_ _t_ _think._ ” It wasn’t technically an agreed-upon signal, but it had kind of become one. _You’re overthinking and need to stop._ So Caleb nodded his head slowly at Gilmore, took up the copper wire and lined it up between both thumbs. He murmured the spell into his hands, turned around and whispered into the wire.

“ _I will find shelter, acquire food and come within range to message you again. You can reply to this message._ ”

Gilmore’s grin split his face. He covered his mouth with one beringed hand and Caleb heard his whisper at the back of his mind. “ _Very good. Nice form, too. I await your Message later today._ ”

With that, the spell faded, Sherri returned and Gilmore sent him away with unnatural amounts of charm, his red phosphorus and a shiny piece of copper wire.

He explored the city that day. He found out what the Erudite Quarters were and decided to stay _way_ clear of them. For now. He found both slums and decided that he would be better off climbing literal trees and tying himself to the trunk on the higher-up branches than even thinking about looking for shelter there. He asked around for book shops. He bought and stole food. He looked for shelter but ended up returning to the undisturbed, abandoned little house behind two back alleys. It had been untouched.

He left his cat to watch for possible intruders and when the sun began setting, made his way back into range of the shop. He positioned himself closer to where he thought would be the back entrance and cast his Message.

“ _Mr. Gilmore, this is Caleb_ _Widogast_ _. I found shelter and will return tomorrow, as promised. You can reply to this message._ ”

Within moments, he had his answer.

“ _Sleep well, Caleb. I will see you then.”_

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

They had built a routine after about a week.

Caleb came to the shop every morning, half an hour after Sherri was usually done packing orders and a good while before most regular customers started filtering in. Gilmore talked to him as if they were old friends, though Caleb observed him with other customers and realized that he was like this with everyone. With him, though, there were arguably fewer innuendos. Caleb could make an educated guess as to why that was.

He had been shortsighted in his pursuit of safety and played his cards poorly, that was why.

Gilmore didn’t give him more spell components – but also didn’t let him work. Instead, he had allowed him into the back room after a week. Gilmore invited him for Marquesian tea, sometimes, as they discussed arcane solutions to everyday problems. They argued craft and time frames and method. Caleb felt so much at home during their little discussions, he was downright crushed when he had to leave again. Gilmore’s understanding of the city and its political and economic structure were impressive, the way he compared them to Marquette charmingly patriotic.

He loved visiting Gilmore’s, he really did.

He hated that he was an indulgence. Because if this had been transactional, he could have at least put the thought of debt out of his mind. So he asked to work every day, but was welcomed in as a guest, instead. After the first week of daily visits, he hadn’t just gained access to the workshop, but stolen and earned enough coin to square his dues. He asked to pay what he owed, but even Sherri turned him down.

Caleb had found some kind of kinship with her, rooted in their mutual love and fascination for arcane craftsmanship. On slow days, she made a mean sparring partner to Gilmore’s product and business ideas. Despite her mousy appearance, she was a fierce debater with arguments sharper than any artificery knife. Caleb respected her for that.

Almost two weeks into their arrangement, Gilmore was absent when Caleb came to the shop. Sherri asked him to wait in the way less decorated, still impeccably organized workshop for Gilmore’s return from some kind of official function. She was busy with customers and Caleb was more comfortable staying out of sight, anyway. Sherri asked him to ignore the mess.

“Mess” was too strong a word for the writing desk meticulously stacked with scroll cases and writing materials. Apparently, either the merchant himself or Sherri had begun scribing scrolls from their order list. The ledger was open, the list right there. The referral spell book lay safely on the supplies shelf, hidden between almanacs and encyclopedias, where it belonged. Caleb’s fingers _itched_.

Caleb had done some minor scroll work during his time at the Academy. It hadn’t been hard, per say, it had just burned so much time. It was delicate work and he had liked it, but against the wonders of arcane discovery, it hadn’t exactly been a priority for him. His eyes swept over the ledger.

_Blur. Mage Armor. Daylight. Create Water. Find Familiar. Detect Thoughts. Feather Fall._

The list went on for half a page, neatly written and marked with dates, order numbers and encoded customer ciphers. He had studied some of these spells before. He had done scribe work for all of them. He could be so useful if only they’d let him, he could pay them back _and_ earn his keep, work for materials, coin, _**knowledge**_ … This shouldn’t be a hard decision to make, and yet.

Frumpkin saw him look and decided for him. He meowed with his head cocked to one side. “ _Do it._ ” So he took out his writing supplies and followed lab procedure as closely as he remembered. First, he neatly signed his name in the workshop list, removed his own spell book from its holster, ripped out a page with a dull ache in his heart, washed his hands with vinegar and water in the basin across the workshop. He set his books and coat aside, rolled up his shirt sleeves and began scribing a test scroll with his own ink and paper.

Gilmore returned before he was done. Caleb was too focused on the Blur spell he was transcribing to work through an emotional response at being caught. Frumpkin helped – he dutifully rubbed himself all over the man as Caleb looked up and said: “Frankly, this seems like a waste of your talents. And hers as well. If you approve of my sample work, I’ll get started on the scrolls, yes?” and went back to adapting the scroll’s format to his smaller book.

He rearranged safeguards and repetitions, condensed wording and cut decorative elements for legibility. The one thing he didn’t do, though, was imbuing the paper with the arcane potential that would make it a workable spell scroll. He did argue with himself about it, he hated leaving work unfinished, but the cons outweighed the pros and that was that. His “lab manager” hadn’t approved a cast, after all.

Gilmore let him finish, as he himself began working on an enchantment. Caleb had tuned him out for the most part, anyway. If Gilmore watched him work at any point, he didn’t notice. When he was done scribing, he cleaned his supplies, packed up, put his workstation to rights and washed his hands again. He left the Blur page for inspection and signed out of the workshop list.

Sherri was working about the shop, stacking shelves and updating inventory lists, so he went and read the card catalog again. That should have distracted him. Well.

He _knew_ he had overstepped. He also knew that his work was good. Now all that remained was for Gilmore to agree to the latter. He had gambled, only his newest calculated risk on a long row of many, now he had to let the dice fall. Fussing wouldn’t help. That wouldn’t fix anything.

Gilmore emerged, his glorious self, shrouded in residual arcane energy, weaving around him in half-visible drifts. It was a good look for him, Caleb decided, even as his heart sank at the paper in his hands. Gilmore’s face was completely blank. Caleb heard his voice at the back of his mind at the exact moment he saw the copper wire flash.

“ _Caleb, a word in the_ _workshop_ _, please. You needn’t reply to this Message, just come._ ”

Frumpkin hadn’t left the backroom yet, but scurried to him at his anxious, mental call. With his cat in his arms, he walked through the beaded curtain and set his spine straight for whatever would come next. Gilmore was waiting for him in his usual lounge chair in the part of the room Caleb would have called the break room. He sat easily, as if this were a regular meeting, as if they were about to discuss the difference between a Marquesian Light spell and its Tal’Doreian counterpart.

“I didn’t expect to see what I did today, but I can’t say you surprised me, either. Do you want to explain yourself?”

Gilmore’s tone and posture were friendly, but Caleb didn’t trust the peace. He kept standing and repeated as he had laid out in his head.

“Yes. I do not understand why you will not let me work. I do not feel comfortable relying on your kindness alone, although I can hardly overstate how grateful I am for it. If it is my skill you doubt, this might vouch for it more than my word. I apologize for overstepping in your workshop, but I will not apologize for wanting to help.”

Gilmore motioned for him to sit. Caleb sat, spine ramrod straight and at the very edge of his usual chair. He stopped cradling Frumpkin and put his hands on his knees instead.

“What can I do to convince you to let me be useful, Mr. Gilmore? I am at a loss,” he added, more earnestly now. Sounding defeated wouldn’t do, but it didn’t help that he couldn’t read Gilmore right now. Normally during these meetings, Caleb could clearly tell if he was arguing a point because he believed it, or if he was arguing a point to prove his own. He didn’t know what to make of his quiet just yet.

Gilmore reached under his seat and pulled up some of his usual rings, adding more to his fingers as he listened. He looked drained, whether from the earlier meeting or the mage work, Caleb couldn’t say. Then he spoke.

“You did almost everything right,” he said and Caleb, already tense, froze completely. “And usually I wouldn’t call any of this sloppy, but…” Caleb had to cut in. He stood by his work – he might not have been the best negotiator, but defending his work, he could. “Sloppy? Show me a single sloppy stroke and I will do it over. I challenge you.”

“Let me finish,” Gilmore said, voice low and heavy and Caleb felt as if he had just been grabbed by the throat and shouted at. He ran ice cold, as if he had been submerged in frigid sea water. Slowly, he nodded.

“Your work is good enough. A tad utilitarian in style for my tastes, but some prefer it that way. What ink did you use?” Caleb gritted his teeth through the answer. “Mine. Carbon ink. Oil soot and rabbit hide glue.” An ink composition screaming _handmade but trying_ more than he would have liked.

“And your own paper. To your credit, Caleb, it _does_ take the ink as well as you advertised. You looped the Neo-Celestial phrases, but unraveled the Dalio-Draconic into the safeguards.”

Caleb waited for additional comments, but then identified the last one as a question.

“They read more fluently like that. This is my personal preference and I will defer to your standards.”

Gilmore interrogated him like this for over twenty minutes. It felt a little like being back in school, defending his work, proving that he hadn’t blindly followed, but thought for himself – and improved what had been given to him, too.

By the end of it, Caleb was asked to activate the scroll. He did with relief and redoubled focus on proper procedure. Three final strokes of his pen, ten minutes of very shifty half-casting (Blur was a weird spell to inscribe) and it was done, eight hours of work on a single piece of paper that wasn’t worth the campfire-brewed, self-ground ink on it. Eight hours of work with a shelf life of a week at most, thanks to his sub-par materials.

He was made to wait while Gilmore showed his work to Sherri. That somehow made him even more nervous. Gilmore returned with his trademark friendly smile and poured him strong, honey-sweet tea with just a dash of alcohol. Frumpkin nuzzled himself into Gilmore’s lap and went to sleep. Caleb was in the clear.

They reached an agreement that Caleb would be allowed to work off the backlog of scroll orders in the mornings, while Sherry packed up the custom orders. He was to do a test version with his own materials for every spell he had not done for Gilmore before he touched the shop materials. He would be allowed to keep his sample work at Gilmore’s discretion.

He was much more at ease coming to the shop, after. A few weeks of this and he would be free of debt, even if just in his own mind. A few weeks of this and the spells he could reverse-engineer from makeshift scrolls to spell book would increase drastically.

His relief lasted until Sherri got paid at the end of the week – and he, too, got compensated for every scroll completed.

He was back at square one.

He wanted to scream.

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

He wasn’t starving anymore. That was a plus. But it was getting colder in Emon, so he pivoted between his abandoned house, a few other holes in the wall and cheap port inns. He studied and scribed in the evenings. He sneaked around and supplemented his components, sourcing them from new stores he found wandering the city or left the city to scout the nearby area. Frumpkin had found somwhere with bats roosting and Caleb had been anxious to explore it for the guano. But he had been tied up.

The Alabaster Lyceum had ordered a good dozen of Identify scrolls and Caleb had been working long days and evenings to keep Gilmore and Sherri away from the scribe desk and on the shop floor, where they would be more effective, instead. Late autumn days were good business, Gilmore told him, because most thrill seekers and sell swords tended to return to Emon and stock up before they settled in for the winter or made for warmer weather.

Caleb sacrificed a few hours of sleep every night and worked on the spell in his own book from memory and the notes he had smuggled out of the shop. He was sure that both Gilmore and Sherri knew, but just let him be, probably glad he was trying to look out for himself.

The safeguards and ritual parts were a real pain on this one, but so, so necessary when he would be handling artifacts he knew nothing about. He needed an owl feather that he sent Frumpkin to find for him and gave him the additional order to return if he didn’t find any by sunset. His familiar had never disappointed him before and he didn’t this time, either.

His fey cat came and found him in Gilmore’s workshop. He presented him with a long, perfect brown-and-cream barred owl feather, arguably better suited to his hands-on approach to material casting than Gilmore’s perfect, jewelry grade plumes. They were perfect for scroll making, definitely. But Frumpkin’s feather was perfect for Caleb. He stopped his work on the scrolls to cuddle his cat in a quiet corner for half an hour. Gilmore stormed in at some point, saw him hug his cat and quietly backed out again.

He would also need an inexplicably expensive pearl, sure, but if he ever got his hands on one, this was definitely a spell that could make him some coin on the side. He had a few regular faces around the docks who could certainly point anyone looking for this kind of skill in his direction if he asked. It would also make points one and two of his original list a lot easier.

He went to sleep in the middle of an Alarm spell every night, planning and thinking, terrified of becoming complacent. He had a good grasp on what Gilmore had in stock, knew his price structure and fit the pieces together in different ways again and again. Being a regular arcane scribe wouldn’t pay for anything close to what would further his goals considerably. But starvation was a very recent memory. He needed to be stable as much as he needed to be inconspicuous.

So he stayed and put all of his focus into his scroll work.

He knew that Gilmore’s relationship with some of the Scholars in the Erudite Quarters was also tied to his reputation with the Cloudtop District, so he showed up every day and worked until his focus broke. Gilmore stopped arguing about his time limit in the workshop when he saw the rate at which Caleb tore through the scroll cases.

“This is an exception,” Gilmore had stressed and Caleb had nodded, quill never stopping, murmuring a mindless “If you say so, Mr. Gilmore. The ledger is on the counter,” hair tied back and sleeves rolled up, Frumpkin sleeping in his lap.

On a good day, he finished one and a half scrolls if he started early, worked until after the shop was closed and the evening assistant, an old, dark-skinned human named Essar, was done cleaning the shop and threw him out for good.

Caleb finished the last scroll half way through day eleven. Gilmore approved it and he waited for the shipment of replacement pearls to come in so he could activate it. As it turned out, even someone as well-stocked as Gilmore didn’t have more than a dozen arcane grade saltwater pearls at the ready, but knew where to get his replacements quickly.

He sat in his corner chair, picked up one of the Transmutation almanacs on the reference shelf and read the early chapters purely for pleasure. Sherri came in with a new pearl when he was halfway through the principles of the relationship of mass to time in Transmutation casting. She smiled when she saw him read, handed him the pearl wordlessly, grabbed her lunch from the ice box in the back wall and walked up the stairs to take her break.

He finished imbuing the final scroll with the arcane potential and casting information to make it fully functional, crushing the pearl to dust over the scroll while working the spell into the fibers with a heavy heart. He watched the powder sink into the paper as if it were fluid ink and tied the final magical knot around the surface of the ink.

He was done. He was exhausted.

He cleaned up on muscle memory alone, signed out of the workshop list, messaged Gilmore that he was finished and would return the day after. The answer came after half a minute of him slouching in the corner chair, a new Message spell after his own had fizzled out.

“ _Get some rest, Caleb. You truly deserve it. Come in tomorrow around lunch time, if possible. Reply, please._ ”

Caleb laughed tiredly and rubbed at his eyes.

“ _I will be here at 12_ _sharp_ _, then. Good business, Mr. Gilmore._ ”

He put his cat around his shoulders and slunk away through the backdoor. He finally felt like his debt had been dented considerably. He found a cheap port inn, paid for a room without windows and fumbled his way through the Alarm spell before going to sleep.

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

He slept through the evening rush, woke way before sunrise and realized he had just about seven hours before he was due for his daily debate with Gilmore. He had missed them dearly when he had foregone sleep and meals to finish his scroll work as quickly as possible. He was growing fond of the man, even though Caleb reminded himself every night that he was a means to an end.

He ate and decided to finally explore the roost Frumpkin had found. His cat led him through a crack in the wall that led from the Port of Emon into the Cemetery District. They kept clear of other figures working their way along the streets and passages, indubitably the Good Folk of Emon going about their unsavory business. He had refreshed his memory of his more harsh spells in the morning, just in case things got unpleasant, but nobody gave him a second glance. Frumpkin led him into one of the cemeteries and past rows and rows of small mausoleums and graves, until they reached a seemingly abandoned building. It seemed older than most of the mausoleums and tombs they had passed on their way.

It wasn’t locked and upon entry, it was clear why. The building, built on marble steps from once-bright, now weathered stones, was a columbarium, lined with shelves upon shelves stocked with urns, some of them even hung from the ceiling. He lit a few dancing lights, dimmed them with his scarf and took a closer look. The iconography was mostly geometric shapes and the occasional animal head, stylized light symbols and beacons.

He looked up and under the roof, he found rows and rows of harmless ghost-faced Tal’Dorei bats, the roost he had seen through his cat’s eyes days before. The floor and most of the urns were covered in bat droppings, old and new. Caleb noted that some of the urns were sparkly clean, probably due to an old-fashioned warding spell. If only he had a criminally expensive pearl on him.

Frumpkin looked up at him expectantly, staring at him until he started casing every nook and cranny he could see. Satisfied Caleb took his suggestion, his familiar left the room through the only door and sat down on the steps, keeping watch.

Caleb methodically investigated the place, worked his way around in concentric circles, down the walls around and around, then step by step along the shelves, inspecting every urn. Frumpkin slipped inside again and sat on the door step, watching. That made Caleb sure that there was something to find, here, other than more bat guano he would ever burn through in Fireballs or Walls of Flame, should he ever get these spells back into his repertoire.

And true enough, under some of the caked bat guano, he found a small wooden box, neatly set against the end of one of the urn shelves. His fingertips went numb for half a heartbeat when he touched it. He turned for his cat and split his senses off into him, seeing himself kneel in bat shit, eyes glazed over fey-blue and shining with arcane power.

“Did you know this would be here?” he asked and watched himself as he cradled the little box, snuffed out his lights and safely stored the little carved box inside of his coat, away from his spell components.

He heard Frumpkin meow inside his own head. He chose to think it meant ‘maybe’. He reverted his senses back to normal, harvested about a cup of bat guano with an artificery knife he had stolen from a half-elf woman who’s bed he had shared for warmth and food in Port Damali. He wrapped his bounty in a scrap of fabric and tied it to his belt.

He made to leave, scooped up his cat and cuddled him all the way back to his abandoned little hut in the middle of Emon. He hadn’t dared use the fireplace yet, lest the smoke alert someone to the houses usability, but he was considering it more and more with every passing night he spent on the cold floor.

He stuck his head outside for the sun, another two hours until he was due for his meeting, and he tried his hand at refining the guano with the little charred cauldron he used for Frumpkin’s summons, the back of his artificery knife as a pestle and a loosely meshed cloth to sift it through. It worked about as well as it reasonably would – which was not nearly well enough to give him the quality of casting guano he would have liked. Maybe Gilmore would let him rent the workshop for a few minutes so he could refine his find in an actual lab.

While he ground and sifted and picked out little clumps of debris from his guano, his mind circled around his other find. He hadn’t opened the little box, he was smarter than that. Until he got hold of a Mage Hand spell or something with the same utility, the little intricately carved hardwood box would stay shut. The way his fingertips had gone numb was all he had needed to banish the thought of hastily opening it for when he would be reasonably safe that he could without harming himself.

If he’d had a pearl at hand, though… Maybe he could rent more than just the workshop. He would need the pearl for 20 minutes, 25 at most. How much could that possibly run him? If Gilmore would allow him to begin with, and if he would allow him to pay his dues.

Caleb had reflected on his need to repay the man a lot. He hadn’t been bothered when he had taken and simply vanished before. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why this was different. He ended his cycling thoughts with the same half-lie whenever he got nowhere thinking about it: It wouldn’t matter why this mattered to him once he left Emon. He wouldn’t be safe there forever.

He flipped through to his pages for the Identify spell and went through the motions once again. He knew every line by heart after his week and a half of doing nothing but Identify spells. He had the perfect owl feather. His hands moved through his somatica without him having to do much about it.

This was the Alarm spell all over again, though with much lower stakes.

Asking wouldn’t hurt. Only if he received without being allowed to return the favor, again. Why did that bother him so much?

He packed up, washed his guano-dusted hands as best as he could, snapped out Frumpkin and made his way for Gilmore’s Glorious Goods. He came in through the backdoor, washed up for good and sent a small message. It was 12 sharp, as promised.

“ _Mr. Gilmore, this is Caleb. I am in the workshop, whenever it_ _woul_ _d be convenient, you can reply to this Message._ ”

The answer was immediate. “ _Two seconds, Caleb, I have a friend with me. We will be with you in a moment._ ”

 _We_. The tiny syllable triggered Caleb’s social unease with such precision that he forgot to snap Frumpkin back onto the Material Plane before he called for him against his chest. When the beaded curtain parted, he sat stiffly in his chair and held onto his cat like his life depended on it. He didn’t want to meet any of Gilmore’s friends for a variety of reasons, not least of them his still constant paranoia.

Gilmore swept in with an extremely elderly human man clad in traditional robes in muted colors, balding head and the unmistakable lick of the arcane clinging to him. For a split second, Caleb saw someone else and his heart stopped. He ran ice cold until Gilmore put a warm, friendly hand on his shoulder. His voice was stabilizing.

“Caleb, stay seated, I insist. Headmaster Adlam, this is Caleb Widogast, the man you have to thank for the swift delivery. Caleb, this is Headmaster Thurmond Adlam of the Alabaster Lyceum. He is quite charmed with your work,” he added with a trademark wink and Caleb rose, nonetheless, Frumpkin held close.

“Headmaster,” he said stiffly and nodded at him. His face didn’t ring any bells (he thanked all the Gods he didn’t believe in), though his name did. Caleb had used his spare time in the city for some recon. “I am glad you are satisfied and hope our scrolls will serve you well.”

“No need to be this modest, son” the Headmaster replied, “You did exceptional work. I was never fond of Dwendalian notation, but I can see its uses after I’ve seen the creativity you’ve applied it to those unraveling fail-safes with. Your creation?”

Caleb could do this. He could do this. There were probably dozens of Empire Mages spread around Emon. He forced himself to believe that this was a good thing, as it would make him forgettable. Ignoring the obvious danger in this train of thought was harder.

“I find it, uuuh… yes. It lessens the impact of stutters when you put it in rhythm like that. But I cannot take full credit, it was a team effort some years ago. And Mr. Gilmore saw it for what it was and put his skill and time into developing it further, too – so really, it’s his… this is as much his work as it is mine.”

Gods, he sounded so undeniably Zemnian, he wanted to throw up. If any Empire Mage heard of a Zemnian ginger who smelled of Firebug components and juggled Dwendalian notation like a lunatic, that would be it for him. The Zemnian part would give him away. But he had said all the right things. There was only hoping.

“Gilmore, where do you keep finding these people?” the Headmaster asked with a friendly shake of his head, then turned back to Caleb. “Mr. Widogast, it was my pleasure meeting you and I wish I could discuss your work in more detail, but I need to be going. I would like to arrange for you to visit the Lyceum, though. You should see what your scrolls are being used on. I am positive you would find it quite fascinating.”

Caleb _wanted_. He reigned himself in only thanks to his extensive training and his obsessive suspicion.

“You must be very busy, Headmaster, I appreciate the offer. I haven’t set foot in the Erudite Quaters, yet, it must be a… sight. I would be very interested in seeing what you are working on. Mr. Gilmore knows how to reach me, should you need to get a hold of me.”

Gilmore must have caught on to his minor panic attack as he charmingly ushered the man out and Caleb slunk into his chair.

He had been set up. Gilmore had set him up to meet the headmaster of the Alabaster Lyceum. Because he meant well. Because he wanted to help. Because he wanted to do him a good turn. He was going to be sick.

Gilmore returned with an apologetic smile. The first words out of bis mouth were: “I should have told you,” then he presumably saw Caleb hyperventilating in his corner and forced the beaded curtain into a closed door with a flick of his wrist. He drew closer, concern obvious. “Caleb, what is wrong, what can I do?”

Caleb clung to Frumpkin and ground out, mostly air: “Stress, just, just, just leave me be.”

His thoughts were scenario after scenario, old men in robes, Empire mages in port inns, an impeccable, red uniform jacket. He felt Frumpkin purr against his chest, but didn’t hear the sound. He split his senses off, a desperate attempt at clawing his way out of his head and what he saw was Gilmore’s concerned face, looking back at his cat, nodding.

“I will not touch you, Caleb. Should I look somewhere else, too? Would it help you if I talked you through this?”

Caleb shrugged. He had never had the luxury. Gilmore looked at the table between them with a very neutrally pleasant expression. “Let’s try it, yes?”

He talked Caleb down in under five minutes, asked him about his sleep and his cat and even more questions about his cat. He poured him tea and sweetened it with an excessive amount of honey, kept an absolutely benign conversation afloat with minimal input from Caleb as he slowly moved through the workshop and produced some spiced bread. The soft chatter and the calories helped.

“I’m better, thank you,” Caleb murmured, chewing on a piece of bread. This had gone poorly, but at least it had confirmed his long standing suspicion that he had been extremely lucky so far. And that he was one bad night away from crumbling and running for his life without thought or reason.

Gilmore took a deep breath. He seemed genuinely relieved and looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Now I know for certain that you have pushed yourself too far for these scrolls,” he said and poured himself some tea, too. “I’m going to have to lock you out of the workshop so you get some rest, apparently,” he joked.

Caleb took a long drag of practically warm, liquid honey. He opened his half empty flask of burning sharp alcohol and topped off his small cup. “This has nothing to do with the work,” he argued and gave the same treatment to Gilmore’s cup, “I did not expect this and it threw me for a loop. You couldn’t have known.”

He laughed a dry laugh, reflecting on the last few weeks. They had never talked about this. “And I would have done the same, had I been in your place. I mean, a foreign beggar comes into your shop, offers to whore himself out for some silver wire, rejects your help at every turn, claws his way into your backroom and spends day and night working on your order backlog without wanting recompense.”

The words were sour like acid on his tongue. “What would you even make of that? I do not begrudge you confronting me with someone who might have been able to shed some light on my behavior, or my history. Though I appreciate that you do not pry into my business, otherwise.”

Gilmore laughed with him, took a swig of spiked tea and got the sly look he got when he was calculating an argument’s impact. He looked at Caleb with that same look and admitted: “I think I need to come clean about something. I haven’t pried, but not for lack of trying. Nobody in this city knows who you are, Caleb Widogast, or that you exist. I don’t even know where you go when you leave my shop and, if you pardon my rhyming, not for lack of scrying.”

Caleb’s mind ceased working while he filed that information away. He should be alarmed. He should stand up and leave. Run until his legs gave out. Instead he was relieved that Gilmore had known not to blindly trust him, but had done his research on him. What worried him, though, was that with those results, or lack thereof, he was still allowed inside.

He wordlessly pulled out the amber amulet from underneath his threadbare shirt and dangled it from the chain around his neck. Gilmore had earned this. “You can keep trying if you enjoy the process, but the result will be the same.”

“Well,” Gilmore said with a shrug, but Caleb could tell he was masking his surprise to Caleb’s forward answer. “that explains it. I want to ask some very personal, very prying questions right now, but maybe there will be a better time to pose them. You said something about exploring a cemetery, earlier. Why don’t we talk about that instead?”

Thankful and maybe a little too eagerly, Caleb leaped to change the topic. He told Gilmore about Frumpkin’s scouting and the columbarium he had found. He told him about the bat guano and placed it on the lab sink for later inspection. He pulled out the little box he’d found and explained his thoughts. He calmed into his monologue, and remembered what he had set out to do earlier.

“If you will not take my money,” he added, “then maybe I could interest you in some bat guano in exchange for letting me refine it in your workshop. And, if you are amenable, I would like to borrow a casting pearl, so I can safely identify what might be protecting my little treasure here.”

Gilmore was as fascinated with the little box as he was, and quick to suggest a solution. “Oh, I can get behind that trade, consider it done. Whatever is in there, if the former owner was cautious enough to protect it like this, it _must_ be worth the effort. Maybe Sherri could open it for you with a Mage Hand?”

“Ah. I hadn’t thought of that,” Caleb admitted, already spinning for the components opposite the work bench. “But I would like to see what it does, first. With your permission.” His hand paused in front of the labeled drawer. Gilmore waved his hand, sipped his tea and, with a keen eye, watched him cast the Identify spell for the first time, really cast it, ritual and all.

He perfectly balanced his feather between his fingers as he recited, held the pearl to his chest with his other hand and plucked at the arcane guards of his little box with sure, proverbial fingers. Every pass of secure repetition gave him another piece of knowledge, another solid feeling of the reality surrounding it. After a good ten minutes, he had his answer, the pearl practically glowing between his fingertips.

“The box is a stunner-lock, a blend of charm and lightning,” he said, lifting it up carefully, and offering it to Gilmore. “Three charges, released upon opening. Ten-foot range. No command word, it needs all charges expended or needs to be dispelled. A Knock spell would also work, I think. That one is a little gray. Do you want to check my work?”

Gilmore shook his head. “How long were you working on that Identify in your book?” he asked instead. Caleb shrugged. “I did nothing but Identify for two weeks, Mr Gilmore, and my notes do have a shelf life. The paper wasn’t made to be scroll paper,” he offered and put the pearl back where he had taken it from. “I think Miss Sherri would be a true asset, here. Unless you feel like dispelling something that might still work after it was opened. But… It feels… uh… I have a feeling this might have been a rushed job. It’s not very well enchanted.”

They called in Sherri, who was delighted to find out what would be in the little box, too, and more than ready to contribute her Mage Hand skills to the task. She summoned the hand, took the box up and the three Arcanists left the workshop. Frumpkin stayed behind, serving as Caleb’s eyes, way out of range of the stunning spell. Sherri tried opening the box once. A flash of yellow light ignited around the Mage Hand, but found no target.

“It worked, twice more,” Caleb commented, hand on Gilmore’s shoulder for orientation. The next flash was a ball of lightning. The one after reddish and muddy. The fourth try opened the sliding box and Sherri turned the contents out on the work bench. Caleb ordered Frumkin closer. His cat hopped onto the counter and Caleb saw a ring, inlaid with a purple stone on the counter. It could have passed for regular jewelry. If it weren’t for the unnatural sheen he could see through his cat’s eyes.

“It is a ring,” he said and slipped out of Frumpkin’s head. Gilmore was grinning at him like a madman. “Let’s have a look, yeah?” he suggested and pushed Caleb through the curtain, following close behind. Frumpkin dutifully waited on the counter for them, nudging their bounty with his paw. Sherri was equally excited. Her Mage Hand dissipated in a diminishing vortex.

“Oh, this is definitely deception,” she commented at the bland little ring.

Caleb had seen similar rings, built to look vaguely decorative, but packing a punch underneath. Gilmore handed him the pearl and he opened his spell book again. He burned through the spell without ritual and it tore at his focus. He had seen himself through his cat’s eyes, he was still white like a sheet. Even though he had calmed down considerably, he was still upset. Not upset enough to botch an identification, though.

He took the cold ring up in his palm and rolled it around with his thumb just as the spell closed out. He had mixed feelings about this ring. Most of all, though, he still wanted to sob. It would complete his paranoia set of spells and trinkets, or it would put him even with Gilmore’s Glorious Goods. He was not in a state if mind to make this decision. He held it close to his chest.

“I don’t know if I should…” he began, than looked at Sherri’s curious face and felt the compulsion to tell her. “It is a Ring of Mindshielding. Needs attunement, protects from scrying spells into your mind. I am sure the right person would pay handsomely for it.”

He handed it over for her to look at it and gush about the spell work. Gilmore regarded her with fondness as she gave it back and made for the store floor at the ringing bell of their door. Caleb handed the pearl back over and Gilmore’s fingers lingered longer than they had to. He looked deep in thought.

“Someone as secretive as you might find some use for it,” he said as he brushed his fingertips over Caleb’s knuckles. Caleb had no idea what to make of that. The shop keeper turned and put away the pearl, inspected the opened box and hesitated.

“You… are getting back into the thick of mage work again?”

“Yes,” Caleb answered, confused as to where Gilmore was going with this. At this point, anyone’s guess might have been as good as his.

“You are very tactile with your components, I think I should have…” Gilmore trailed off, rummaging through some orderly kept storage boxes on the shelves next to the stairs. “Ah, here. Maybe these might fit. You dabble with practices that need very toxic components,” he said and turned around. Caleb couldn’t quite make out what he had in his hands. “And I think these would serve you well.”

He stepped closer and handed Caleb a pair of thin, perfect leather gloves. Gilmore was handing him casting gloves. He was gifting him casting gloves. The craftsmanship on these alone didn’t come cheap. He knew from experience – his old ones had been lab property or gifts. Caleb was stunned.

Gilmore opened the wrist buttons when Caleb didn’t move and slipped them onto his hands. His fingers were warm and sure and Caleb had to fight not to tear his hands away. They felt like Ikithon’s casting gloves had. Just perfect for him.

“You will still get paid for your work on the scrolls, but take this as a _personal_ thank you for the time and energy you’ve put in. Your efforts might give the shop an edge in something Sherri, Essa and I have been working on for a while.”

“I cannot accept these,” Caleb managed stiffly. This was all wrong. It was exactly like it had been before.

“I insist. I had them lying around, anyway, and you will put them to better use than anybody who might waltz in here.”

A lie. He could see it in the man’s face, but more, Caleb read the ledger every morning. Gilmore had made enchanted gloves two days ago. These had been made for him, custom and bespoke. Gilmore’s fingers smoothed the leather over his skin. Caleb’s stomach dropped.

“And Headmaster Adlam was quite taken with you, which will work in my favor, specifically. He might be old and stubborn, but his word has some weight with the council. So maybe, just maybe, I might have some… _very good news_ tomorrow. And they might just be thanks to your efforts, putting me in his good graces.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Caleb sat in his little hole in the wall, was disoriented and frankly, not well. Today had been a lot. From the sudden confrontation with the headmaster of the actual Alabaster Lyceum, to the realization that Gilmore had tried to scry after him, to the casual invitation to spell casting with shop materials for his private use in his Identify spells, to the _gift_.

The ring had required attunement, the gloves had not. The moment he had stepped out of the shop and breathed for the first time, he had realized their nature. They were imbued with a Prestidigitation spell.

Caleb had experimented with them to try and get his mind to settle, had created effect after effect, soiled and cleaned. He had flavored his alcohol, heated and cooled it, painted walls and dispelled, dispelled and dispelled. But it only reminded him of the fact that Mr. Gilmore of Gilmore’s Glorious Goods had spent almost a whole day’s work and an estimated 25 gold in enchantment materials alone to gift him Enhanced Gloves of Prestidigious Casting.

This was the last straw, but every consequence he drew made less sense than the one before. His only option was rebellion, if he hoped to set things straight while also not fleeing Emon, after he had fled _to_ Emon just a month ago.

His thoughts drifted back to the lingering touches. The way Gilmore had said “ _very good news_ ”. How he hadn’t even flinched at the mention of Caleb whoring himself out. Maybe he hadn’t played his cards wrong, maybe he had just misinterpreted the signs? No, that made even less sense than his earlier notion of sneaking coin into the register.

He was too upset for real solutions. But he needed one, more than ever.

Frumpkin was doing his best, making biscuits on his chest as Caleb himself lay on the ground with his legs toppled to the side, tipsy from his arcanely Whiskey-flavored moonshine. His cat was purring ceaselessly. Caleb had lost track of time.

Gilmore thought him handsome. The man made it no secret. They had taken one or two teas with a hefty swig of something stronger. Gilmore had called him handsome then, he had called him handsome sober. Caleb had tried to dig out his old Academy charm and play to it, but he had soon found that he needed the alcohol for his mind to ease into it.

Gilmore had a reputation. He was a man of ostentatious tastes, impeccable repute in business and arcane curiosity. He was also said to have a type, and Caleb fit both “clever” and “traditionally attractive” enough to fall within its lines. It also helped that the man was said to be about as gay as Caleb himself was indifferent.

Gilmore was a tough negotiator, a good debater and a perceptive friend. All these qualities didn’t exactly make any of this easier. But his options were as they stood: coin, skilled work, arcane goods, personal favors.

Caleb rotated his new ring around his finger. Really, he would have offered the trinket up the moment the man had shown any interest in it. And Gilmore had taken that thought straight out of action before it came to that. He had tried to pay in metal for four weeks, without success. Also, Caleb was reasonably sure that the merchant had only allowed him to offer up guano because he had just seen him fold in on himself in a full-blown, ugly panic attack.

Ah, his cemetery harvest was still on the sink at the shop. That would be his key back inside. Over the course of the next half hour, he formulated his rebellion and named it thus. But he would need to sober up a little, and refresh his memory on a few little charms, just to be on the safe side. A little Suggestion never hurt anybody and after the sheer confrontation of today’s events, he would be glad to have something at his disposal to mellow out potential emotions. He wished he had a sobering spell, too.

Caleb used the Gloves to clean himself up for all eventualities. He was positive that his bandages hadn’t even been this clean when they were fresh. He combed and pulled up his hair, and righted himself. He sorted through his components and read up on his more shifty spells. He proof-cast a Suggestion and tested his wording. The Gloves made handling his components ridiculously satisfying. He still felt them through the paper-thin leather, could practically feel the oil on his fingertips, but a thought and a nudge and they were clean.

He took his time to prepare. He even slipped into Frumpkin to make sure he looked presentable before he left. When he cast the Alarm spell on his little shelter, it was just about an hour before Gilmore left the last work of the day to Essar.

He went back and cast a Message through the crenel. “ _Mr. Gilmore, this is Caleb. I forgot my guano, and would like a private word, if you are available. You can reply to this Message._ ”

He waited at the backdoor for an answer.

“ _Come inside, I’m in the workshop,_ _weaving_ _._ ”

Gilmore was enchanting, working around a large steel cauldron settled in standard white salt and burning, smoking myrrh. Caleb quietly stepped inside and sat down to wait. Gilmore tied the current arcane knot and the glimmer of burning myrrh died down. The man rolled his shoulders and turned with a tired, automatic smile.

“I thought you’d have had enough for one day,” he said. He sounded tired, too. Caleb shrugged as Frumpkin betrayed him for one of Gilmore’s thorough pets.

“If I cram as many uncomfortable experiences into one day as possible, at least that’ll leave me with the peace of mind that I didn’t drag them out unnecessarily,” he answered truthfully.

Gilmore picked up Frumpkin and came to sit with him. He looked drained, about as fried as Caleb had been after a 12+ hour day of scribing. Caleb realized two things: that his plan had been forged way too drunkenly and that with Gilmore this exhausted, it wouldn’t have stood the test of reality for more than five seconds.

“And what private word with me would make you this uncomfortable, Mr. Widogast?” the merchant asked and relaxed into his couch with a sigh. Caleb swore he heard his spine pop.

“I had the… the extremely stupid idea to come here and offer you… increasingly personal favors as payment for your generosity. Until you took me up on an offer or grew so uncomfortable you would let me pay in a different manner.”

Gilmore’s face froze, then he let out a single, dry laugh. Caleb looked towards the stairs, instead, as he continued.

“I had been drinking,” he explained, then went on, voice steadier than he had expected: “And only now realized how… impossible that idea was. But the fact of the matter remains, I do need you to stop… indulging me. You need to stop _giving_ to me.”

Gilmore stretched on the couch, Frumpkin held close. Caleb had to put in a conscious effort not to call him to his side. The man sighed. “I am not simply _giving_ , Caleb, I receive things from you in return. Though I wonder why you are so _obsessed_ with _getting even_.”

“I cannot be indebted to you, Mr. Gilmore,” Caleb tried, voice thin and brittle and it was true enough. He was not equipped for this turn of the conversation, he had planned for something else entirely. He was going to begin to panic, he could feel it. There was a raw, iron flavor at the back of his throat.

“You have no debt in my house, Caleb, and I will repeat it to your face every day if I need to.”

He sounded so warm and friendly and honest and _tired_ that Caleb simply snapped. The root of his obsession hit him like a botched Fireball and he bit the words out with contempt.

“ _I won’t be your little pet project, I would rather starve myself again._ ”

He was Bren and angry and hurt and felt a twisted sense of satisfaction at Gilmore’s shock-wide eyes. He could see the gears turning behind dark eyes and huffed out a mean laugh in response.

“Not what you expected? You have all the puzzle pieces, Mr. Gilmore. You are a clever man, you can figure it out what is happening,” he sneered, taunted, really. He went on, tone ice cold. “An Empire whore knocks at your door, begging on his knees for an Alarm spell.”

With that, Frumpkin jumped into his lap to hiss at him before he could go on.

That gave him pause.

He swallowed and forced himself to look at Gilmore. His face was hard to read, but his teeth were grinding together, his eyes wide. He was making it worse. He was making everything worse. He could feel himself blanch again. Gilmore was waiting for him.

Frumpkin meowed at him. He reached for his cat with shaking hands. Frumpkin meowed again, tapped his paw against his component pouch. Caleb wasn’t following. Then Frumpkin made a sign he hadn’t made in over five years.

He raised his paw in a ‘nyan’ gesture and showed his teeth. Wulf. Then to the component pouch again. It took Caleb a solid minute of quiet shaking and blank thoughts to figure it out. Eodwulf had self-charmed before tests when they hadn’t been checked for self-charms, yet. He had been so, so anxious the first few times.

Gilmore waited for him to get himself back under control, always just off eye-contact, quietly and, Caleb could tell, seething underneath.

“I will fix this,” Caleb murmured under his breath, “I will fix this, I will fix this, I will fix this,” as he grabbed for his Suggestion components. At this, Gilmore perked up and his fingers moved as if to form a Counterspell, the thick focus ring on his thumb glowing with bright blue light. Caleb’s eyes stung, but he flicked his Gloves, put his hands on his own chest as he said:

“I suggest that I calm down and explain myself just enough so that we can reach a mutually beneficial agreement, after my own best judgment.”

He didn’t fight the spell. The Suggestion took a hold around his thoughts and he could feel it rearrange the insides of his head. His heart stopped beating too fast. His hand ran through Frumpkin’s fur. Gilmore’s face made sense, again. His anger showed. Caleb lowered his eyes and _thought_.

“I have already been someone’s little favorite once before,” he began. “It made me resilient and ambitious and _stupid_ and I am smarter now. I will not make the same mistake again. This is why I need to know that my dues are paid, even if that will not make us equal. I cannot be someone’s indulgence again, even if you mean well. I can’t.”

Gilmore sat up and grimaced. “Who… who kept you, Caleb?”

He was glad he had left the spell malleable around the edges. _Enough_ was truly a magic word.

“Someone you will never have the misfortune of meeting. With this understanding of my… circumstances, will you allow me to pay for my components, at least?”

Frumpkin seemed vigilant, looking out for him with glowing eyes. Gilmore was beginning to twist his rings around his fingers. He was thinking along, then. Good. Caleb laid out his thoughts.

“I understand that the proper recompense of your employees is vital to your reputation. I will also have to accept your gift if you keep insisting I keep it. But I will pay for my wares. I can pay in coin, skilled work, materials or said favors. Personally, I would prefer anything but materials. Coin would be cleanest. Skill would be most beneficial for the shop. Sex would be easiest for me to perform. But if you want the ring, for example, or spell components, I will part with them. My pendant is off limits, but everything else, you can have. What are your thoughts, Mr. Gilmore?”

Gilmore took a rather obvious breath. He was rattling through his words in his head, Caleb could tell, so he lowered his eyes again and petted his cat. The spell kept him reasonably calm for now. He had never self-charmed like this before, but now he understood why Wulf was quickest to reach for a Suggestion spell for almost anything. It made him feel like all his thoughts were his own and had he not cast it on himself, he would have never noticed.

“Personal favors are straight out for me, Caleb,” Gilmore said after a moment’s quiet. “Don't get me wrong, you're a handsome fellow. And I think you are aware of that a little too well. But if you want to sleep with me for… transactional reasons, well, I am not comfortable with that, to be honest.”

Caleb almost laughed. So much filler for “Please don’t fuck me for money”. A shame. So he said so. Maybe he also wanted to provoke a reaction, but well, under the spell he thought that this would be a good idea.

“Oh, it wouldn’t be purely transactional, I know how to get mine. You are very attractive yourself and I wouldn’t mind getting on my knees for you, be it to ride your cock or suck it. But if you are uncomfortable with that, what… payment option is your preference?”

Gilmore got a very strange look on his face, then caught himself. It had taken Caleb a moment to discern the expression. He looked distressed.

“Coin would be cleanest,” he agreed, “But I might have a favor to ask of you, come tomorrow morning. How about this: You go home. You rest and sober up. You come here tomorrow when I open the shop and if the favor isn’t worth your components, you may pay the difference. How much was that again? 3 gold?”

“33 silver pieces,” Caleb corrected. The Suggestion faded, condition seemingly met. He was still calm, but worried by Gilmore’s tense shoulders and his set jaw that masked how overwhelmed he was. Caleb knew that expression well. He changed seats onto the couch and Gilmore tensed. A first.

“I will go home,” he said, putting his gloved hand on Gilmore’s shoulder. Repeating an evening’s terms was routine enough to come fluently. He kept looking at the stairs to avoid having to force eye contact on himself, ordering Frumpkin to purr in the man’s lap. “I will sleep and sober up. I will come here when you open shop. I will listen to your favor and we will figure it out from there, Mr. Gilmore.”

“Just Gilmore will do, Caleb,” he said with a helpless laugh and it was the first time Caleb had heard him sound worn this thin. Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one who had put in more work than was healthy. He had only been too tired himself to make the connection of Gilmore being well into complicated enchantments when he arrived in the mornings to him starting earlier than usual at the workshop.

“Do you… want my cat?” he offered, though he didn’t know if Frumpkin actually did anything for Gilmore, or if the man was just polite enough to casually shower his fey cat with affection. He couldn’t think of another way to comfort him. Caleb kept sitting there stiffly while Gilmore leaned into him for a moment.

“No,” he said, “you’ll need him. He’ll keep you safe.” With that, he gave Frumpkin a long, cuddly kiss on his head, sat him back on Caleb’s lap and gave Caleb’s hand on his shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

“We should both get some rest, there will be plenty of work for us here, tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied twice, this is gonna be more chapters, but I needed more DRAMA and there will be some porn next chapter, THIS TIME FOR REAL; I HAVE AN OUTLINE I PROMISE.

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, that was... something, alright.  
> Here's some [more porn to tide you](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curiawesome/works) over until I finish the next chapter, but let me level with you, I owe the fine folks over at Zemnian Tomes a chapter and that's gonna come next. Just a heads up!


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